"I told Jill she could kiss you..." My fiancee, Jessie, had just told me she wanted me to kiss her little sister.
"Isn't that a bit contrived? Should I kiss her during a game of spin-the-bottle?" She didn't like that, she was being serious.
"I see it as you take her for ice cream when the Sun's going down, and sit with her on a bench and as it's just getting tough to see you give her a nice kiss, no tongue...maybe a touch of tongue." Jessie was always particular about the way things should be done, but this was surreal.
"She didn't think you were patronizing? I know she must of been absolutely embarrassed when you suggested it." She frowned and pinched my arm. I kind of hoped she'd drop it and go in her house and go to bed.
"Well, that's the problem, isn't it? She's the shyest girl of all time and she's twenty and has never had a boy kiss her for real. All I've told her is that it's alright if she kisses you."
"How would this be a 'real' kiss, you've planned it all out for her?" The real issue was eternally unspoken. She wanted me to kiss her sister because she thought Jill would get too sick or even die before she got the chance to find the right guy to kiss.
Most of Jill's shyness stemmed from her disease, cystic fibrosis, but it was more of Jessie's fear that half of her sister's life was over at twenty, and that she had a better chance of dying in her twenties than not. I understood what she wanted, but didn't think her first-kiss plan was best.
"You love her right? She's had the biggest crush on you since she was twelve. It wouldn't be some erotic thing, it'd just be a nice kiss from the only boy she trusts and most likely fantasizes about."
"Jess, I'm too old for her--she should be kissing another twenty-year-old who has absolutely no experience with females. It's better when it's awkward." Jessie stuck her tongue in my ear and rubbed my inner thigh with her hand. I eventually agreed to consider her proposition, mainly because she pushed her gorgeous cleavage into my chest in such a mind-numbingly erotic way.
***
I'd forgotten the kiss proposal, and Jessie hadn't mentioned it for weeks when I was alone with her sister, Jill, in their living room one evening in early June. Jessie was supposed to be home from work around eight and I'd driven Jill home from her cashier's job around six, so I didn't bother going back to my house.
We watched consecutive episodes of her favorite show, a kid's horror series, and she asked me if I wanted ice cream. It was the first nice night after a week of rain so I thought of going out for a bit.
"Wanna go get ice cream at the stand out in Drake instead?" It was about twenty-five minutes drive, but it was very good, her sister's favorite anyway. She paused the DVD, thought about it for a second then hopped up off the couch.
"Ok, let me change." She returned in a light sweater and shorts. She looked so different than her sister, she was barely five foot, had straight dark hair, her breasts were the butt of many training-bra jokes, 'though her ass was shapely similar to Jessie's, and she was as cute as she was shy.
She had her girlfriends, but I was pretty sure that I was the only guy close to her age that she'd ever had a serious conversation with. I had a brotherly fondness for her for as long as I'd known her. I'd started dating her sister in high school and as I got closer to Jess I'd gotten closer to Jill.
The fact that Jill's illness could accelerate and she could be dead in a matter of weeks to months from some basic infection broke my heart. She was the sweetest girl I'd ever met and her shyness just made me feel more sorry for her. I initially experienced all of it through Jessie, but as time passed Jill became more and more comfortable with me and it just magnified those earlier feelings of pity.
I knew how to help her put her special vest on that shook the mucus from the walls of her lungs, and had spent hours pounding her fragile body in the old way--when she'd trusted me enough to let me see her sick. It had initially been sympathy for my girlfriend who experienced her sister's illness in such a heavy way, but as I got to know Jill my feelings became more centered on her.
"Can I drive, Danny?" She'd finally gotten her learner's permit that winter and had taken drivers-ed but hesitated to go for the driving test. I gave her my keys. Her smile was adorable. We were off, she drove with a foot on each pedal, left on brake, right on gas.
"It seems like you're getting better at this, when you gonna go get your license?"
"Not too soon, eventually I guess... If I get my license you won't have any reason to come over when Jessie's at work." She blushed. God, everything she felt you could read by the different shades of pink on her cheeks.
"That's not true. Besides, if you had your license you could drive to my house anytime you wanted to hang out, or take me to a drive-in movie. You couldn't do that now, could you?" Flirting with her was fun but usually short lived, she'd just get too embarrassed and it felt like you were torturing her. The pink on her cheek turned pinker, not quite red yet.
"There aren't any drive-ins around here, Danny." She giggled, so amazingly girlish.
"Then where do you go with all your boyfriends on Thursday nights?" She had various doctors' appointments, usually on Thursday's because that was the night her mother didn't work. Jessie and I had a running joke for years about who she was dating that Thursday.
We'd talk about her going to some pancreatic specialist as if he were some hot new guy in school--how he'd stack up against the kidney specialist, where he'd take her, a whole assortment of personality traits and illicit plots that we'd tease her with.
"I don't have any boyfriends, Danny." She was flush now, I figured I shouldn't make her too nervous, she might crash the car or something.
"Well, when you do I hope you torture them as much as your sister tortures me." We were quiet for the last few minutes of the drive, finally arriving at the soft-serve stand in the middle of nowhere.
"Jilly, you want a Slushie too?" She shook her head. She got apple flavored ice cream, I think I got banana, but I was more interested in the cherry Slushie. We sat down at the picnic table, only then did I remember my future wife's little ploy to get Jill her first kiss. I shivered. I thought about it for a minute, but it didn't seem like it'd go over well, she might enjoy it but then we'd both be too embarrassed.
I watched her eat her ice cream, it wasn't sensual, just reminded me of how a kid eats an ice cream cone. Her hair was in a pony tail, she wore beige shorts with a little stain from her ice cream and white socks and tennis shoes. She was cute enough to kiss, smiled enough at me, maybe I could kiss her...
